Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

An old Ortofon VMS 20E mk ii cartridge (it’s the OG Rega Planar 2 with the wood surround) and a third party stylus replacement.

I'd get a new cartridge. Those VMS ortofons are OK, especially with the original needle, but the 3rd party replacements are pretty poor.

My Pro-Ject Phonobox II has died a death, does any one have a phonostage going? Or a turntable with a phonostage as this dual turntable is probably considerably old than I am.

anyone pick up the wax trax reissue of coil's LSD ?

New marantz network player constantly falling off the wifi since recent update. Entering password a mega ball ache every few hours, tried a static IP and something with the dhcp but still does it, running a patch cable possible but messy.
Might try and work out how to roll back the firmware and then turn off auto update might be the easiest option!

If you’re gonna spend most of your time using headphones, buy some better headphones. I have a love hate relationship with Grado, and currently have some of the new SR80X’s. They sound great but man, I don’t believe anyone on the planet considers these to be comfortable. There are better options out there. Unfortunately a lot of the spend on Grado’s goes to being MiUSA… but they’re not well made. So it’s a bit of a faux pas.

constantly falling off the wifi

... Fucking wireless....

Bluetooth is the worst.

Never use BT for anything I don't have to, super patchy (apart from Android carplay seems solid in just about any car/rental I jump in which is nice). But yeah, Wifi been fine until most recent update, retailer and marantz just sending me the usual universal fixes, likely not even aware yet that the most recent update is causing issues. Now have a giant patch cable stretched across the room, pretty, not.

You can get stuff like this (I've no idea if this specific one is any good) to convert wifi to ethernet neatly
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bridge-Convert-Ethernet-Wireless-Repeater/dp/B07TND8849

Bigger is better right?

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Did you make any decision on this? I'm pondering a Sonos Beam

Bigger is better right?

For speakers- always.

They look great. I have Tannoy envy now.

Gonna do a full job on them, get the drivers refoamed and aligned, I'll refinish the cabinets, internal braces, new dampening and acoustic foam, replace capacitors in the crossover. Should sound significantly better than new in a few months.

Awesome!

Do post some pics of the end result.

Better be worth it

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Anyone got a fancy DAC with optical in that they’d lend me? Wanna see if I can tell the difference between chromecast audio internal one and something much better.

where abouts are you? I have a pretty decent Wyred 4 Sound DAC

Ooh fancy, that’d be great. Clapton, le London.

Bit concerned about opening that Pandora’s box tbh

Ah, I'm just up the road in Walthamstow. PM me and we can sort something out.

The DAC has USB, toslink and coax inputs; hopefully you can feed in via one of those?

(much) older version of this:

https://wyred4sound.com/products/digital-converters/dac-2v2-series

That's going to sound phenomenal.

For my Chromecast Audio I just use one of these https://audioengineusa.com/shop/components/d1-24-bit-dacheadphone-amp/

I figure that anything streamed is already compressed enough that adding a DAC is a tiny benefit not a significant one. Just something a bit better than the built-in.

looks good - maybe one for @dbr to consider if he rates the DAC as making a difference.

In my set up, it is playing flac files from a NAS and Tidal, via Roon on a fairly cheap windows laptop. The laptop has an Ethernet connection to the router. So in theory, no lossy compression.

Remembered I had a second CCA knocking around so I could do an easy comparison - one analogue out into pre-amp, one optical out into Chas' very generously lent super-DAC. Matched the dB levels perfectly and was pleased to find I could group the two CCAs to play the same source with no delay / offset between them.

My source is just Spotify at the highest setting (256kbps AAC for Spotify Connect to CCA) and I'm delighted to say I couldn't tell the difference.

This forum guy has a good breakdown:

The unit itself has a very capable DAC built in and it can directly convert every single digital format it is designed to encounter and convert it to analog, music. Done.

If using the Toslink digital out the incoming signal can again be anything under the sun which it is designed for however the Chromecast device will then have to CONVERT it to a digital signal which Toslink can then carry such as S/PDIF PCM. The signal now travels to the outboard DAC and gets converted to analog.

Here's an example . Using an incoming Hi-Res signal such as 24-bit/96 kHz you then have to downgrade the signal, because Toslink can't carry it, to say SD [standard resolution] 16-bit/44 or 48 kHz PCM. So rather than taking the best signal possible and converting it to analog directly with [the internal] AKM AK4430 DAC, instead there is a [potential] loss of quality because of:

A. - the conversion process from one digital format to another
B. - the forced use of a lower resolution format to transfer the signal via optical.
C. - an outboard DAC with inferior performance to an AKM AK4430 DAC, true of many even very expensive outboard DACs

It's a shame the internet worries so much about digital stuff when it hardly matters. What matters is the speakers used, their position and aiming, and the room.

So for me, in my use case, it doesn't make a difference or could even sound worse. He makes a good point at the end about real world acoustic changes. I'm happy to keep fiddling with things that are more my bag, building speakers, placement etc and leave the digital realm to someone else.

I noticed that my HD650 pads were so thin that the headphones were sliding all over my head. After wincing at the price I ordered a new pair of pads and headband. I replaced them yesterday and now I'm relistening to everything making faces like an olympic diver. They sound so much better it's insane. It's like I have two small treated rooms on my head. Love it.

So I've been down the rabbit hole and arrived at too many options paralysis. TV/Movies/Music stereo setup. The goal is to buy something easy to use, minimal in appearance and good sound quality. Also something that will not be wasted money on a product with only a single purpose i.e. a soundbar. I know it's a boring discussion but... I have 3 choices in my mind.

KEF LSX - neat, relatively simple. Can connect to TV via Optical and they'll sit neatly next to the wall mounted TV on the mantlepiece. Has all the future-fi stuff I really need. Downside? No HDMI arc so volume will be a separate control. Budget allows me to add a sub for added sound scale.

Bluesound Power Node - new 80 watt version. Good, but have heard it has terrible Lip-sync issues and it leaves me with the "What speakers?" which is another world of options in the sub $800 category. Plus, I'm not encouraged by reading the numerous "customer support" threads.

Similar to the powernode, but no streaming and a hardware relative, the NAD D3045. Has all the connection I want, plus an acceptable MM phono stage. Still leaves me with the choice of what speakers but like the powernode allows for future flexibility.

For the 2 amplifier/streamer options I could could get by with an old pair of Krix bookshelves until I choose the ideal speakers to pair with it.

Thoughts?

Glad to hear that you have avoided the DAC wormhole!

When I bought that DAC, which was quite a long time ago, I also had a Meridian CD player. I listened back to back CD / FLAC and couldn't tell the difference so sold the CD player.